The carcasses of 87 elephants with their tusks removed from their skulls have been discovered near the Okavango Delta wildlife sanctuary, making it what some conservationists are calling elephant poaching on the largest scale ever seen in Africa. The elephants, along with three dead white rhinos, were spotted by Elephants Without Borders, a Botswana-based conservation nonprofit conducting an aerial survey of the country, the BBC reports. Most of the elephants appear to have been poached within the last few weeks, according to the organization, a fact made all the more alarming by Botswana's long history as a sanctuary for elephants and a country with some of Africa's most stringent anti-poaching policies.

All the elephants were found on the outskirts of the protected Okavango Delta, a 8,500-square-mile Eden known for its luxury safari lodges and opportunities to take trips on mokoro dugout canoes through the largest inland river delta in the world. While poaching isn't unheard of in Botswana, until recently most cases had been found along its border with Namibia, according to past surveys conducted by Elephants Without Borders. This level of poaching, right in the heart of Botswana's protected natural reserve, suggests a protracted poaching campaign rather than an isolated killing spree. "The varying classification and age of carcasses is indicative of a poaching frenzy which has been ongoing in the same area for a long time," reads an Elephants Without Borders report obtained by NPR.

Shortly after news of the discovery broke, Botswana's government responded with a statement in which Thato Raphaka, permanent secretary to the Ministry of Lands and Housing, called the claims "false and misleading." He alleged that while Elephants Without Borders had been contracted by the Botswana government to carry out aerial surveys, only 53 dead elephants had been found, the majority of which had died of natural causes. Mike Chase, a conservationist at Elephants Without Borders, told National Geographic that he is "sad that our government has responded in this way," claiming that each sighting was logged in GPS and that there are multiple witnesses for each of the 87 carcasses found by his team.

According to the Great Elephant Census, a project undertaken by the Paul G. Allen Foundation in 2016, Botswana has by far the largest population of African elephants in the world, with some 130,451 of Africa's 352,271 elephants residing within the country's border. It also has the continent's lowest "carcass ratio," i.e. the percentage of dead elephants observed during the census—just seven percent. (As a comparison, Kenya's carcass ratio is 13 percent, Tanzania's is 26 percent, and Mozambique's is 32 percent.)

Botswana's high elephant population numbers had been maintained for years thanks to strict conservation measures, including a ban on elephant trophy hunting and a controversial shoot-to-kill policy for poachers. But policies have changed since the country swore in a new president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, in April 2018. Since taking office, Masisi has disarmed the country's anti-poaching unit, which used to be equipped with military-grade hardware, and supported the parliament's decision to lift a ban on elephant hunting for sport, NPR reports. Chase thinks the change in governmental policy and uptick in poaching are linked. "The poachers are now turning their guns to Botswana," Chase told the BBC. "We have the world's largest elephant population and it's open season for poachers."